A fine old house of painted wood, boarded, white and neat
Yet no one knows what’s underneath, below the house’s feet
As you pass you think “How smart”, “It looks a pleasant place”
But looks can be deceiving, it has another face
 
If you come up to the house and open the front door
Then you’ll taste the fetid smell that rises through the floor
What is the house here built upon? What makes it feel this way?
What gives the air that horrid taste, that smell of damp decay?
 
As if the goodness of this world had rotted deep beneath
Like a miasmatic fog upon some blasted heath
A good well painted showy house but with a noisome air
Beneath the paint, is rotten wood, gone far beyond repair
 
The house is built upon the mire, a noxious, stinking space
All of which is covered up, to shew a weathered grace
No one sees what’s underneath, the pain that’s hidden there
The hurt, the grief, the years alone, which no one else could share
 
Experiences teach us hard, they mar, deform and scar
And yet we must accept them all, they make us who we are
Without the pain who would we be? There is no way to tell
Would we be formless, soft and bland? With no protective shell?
 
What is this house? What does it mean? What I have written here
It is the way I see myself, the house is me, I fear
I am afraid of getting close to others in this life
I fear that if I make a friend then I may cause them strife
 
For then they’ll see me as I am, they’ll sense what is inside
And detect the awful truth, about the me I hide
So tangible, so palpable, they’ll feel my imperfection
Resulting time and time again, in endless stark rejection